


The Best Time to Lie

by ashapoop



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Graduation, M/M, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 19:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15007625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashapoop/pseuds/ashapoop
Summary: “No.” Tooru said after a long moment, shaking the blossom from his hair.“No?”“You’re lying.”“I’m not,” Hajime said, voice steely to mask his pain. “I wouldn’t lie about this.”





	The Best Time to Lie

Hajime exhaled loudly, hands sweaty as they rubbed together while his eyes watched the minute hand ticking away on his bedside table. The pen he had been using was sitting stationary in his sheets, laying there for the past ten minutes, with cardstock ripped to shreds across his lap a million times over. The clouds were covering the sun so shadows danced across his hardwood floor with each soft breeze. There was a numb settling beneath his skin, deep into the cores of each bone. What had been prepared for months was finally presented in front of him like a slap in the face and after weeks, months, years, he wasn’t prepared. 

  


_I should get up_ , Hajime thought absentmindedly. _I am graduating after all_. 

  


It took another five and a half minutes for the man to stand up, stretching until he heard the satisfying pops, and walk to his tiny closet to extract his cap and gown. His fingers smoothed over the slippery surface of each, taking a slow breath before grabbing his dress shirt and pants as well. He knew that both his mother and Tooru would throw a fit if he weren’t properly dressed for the occasion which never failed to drive him mad. The thought of even Tooru’s name made the numbness return, freeze his body into place while his arm cried to be put down at his side. Hajime ignored it, instead zeroing in on the idea of Tooru.

  


Tooru, the annoying fuck who knew every way to piss him off and would do any of it just for fun on a day to day basis. 

  


Tooru, the captain of Seijoh’s volleyball team that lead them as far as any team could go against Shiratorizawa (ignoring Karasuno) successfully, year after year with a smile on his face and a pain in his knee. 

  


Tooru, the boy turned man who had been there since Hajime’s parents moved to their current prefecture, always crying over bugs and knocking at his window at night to go alien hunting. See: how Hajime convinced Tooru that lightning bugs were aliens and they could both be happy. 

  


Tooru, the man he had fallen in love with -- something that was fourteen years in the making and something that haunted Hajime every minute he spent with Tooru past age thirteen. 

  


Haime hadn’t let Tooru into his room in two weeks because he said that his mother wouldn’t allow her favorite second son to see such a mess, and luckily it wasn’t too much of a lie. All around his room were ripped up pieces of notebook paper, printer paper, cardstock, thousands of confessions that Hajime was trying to muster up the courage to write and deliver to Tooru by the date of their graduation; they were thousands of confessions that never got to meet Tooru himself. He couldn’t risk Tooru finding even a piece of a confession because he knew that there wouldn’t be an end to it until Hajime was forced to own up to his own feelings in a time he hadn’t properly prepared which would only lead to a bigger disaster than the one he was already anticipating. 

  


The man was startled from his thoughts at the sound of the front doorbell and Hajime hurried with shaking hands to finish up the last few buttons of his dress shirt before running from his room and getting to the door before his mother could. If she got to Tooru first, he knew there would be twenty questions going on and nineteen of them would be about all the confessions the man was getting from pretty girls at their school. 

  


When Hajime opened the door, though, he wished he hadn’t. 

  


Oikawa Tooru stood before him, tall and beautiful. His eyes were sparkling and his mouth was wide and his dress clothes were fitted too nicely to his slender form. Everything about him begged to be loved, to be worshipped, and a desperate part of Hajime wished to be able to do just that. Tooru stood before him looking like Adonis and he couldn’t cope with this imagery. There were a million words on his tongue, almost all of them positive and embarrassing enough to expose every thought running through his head. 

  


“You look like shit, Iwa-chan,” Tooru interrupted.  


“I get it from you.”  


“Rude! I look ethereal and you look like dirt.”  


“So are we going?” Hajime asked, deadpanned.  


“I guess. Bye bye, okāsan!”  


“Bye Tooru,” Hajime’s mother called from the kitchen. “See you in a few hours!”

  


Tooru bounded down the long staircase that connected Hajime’s home to the road and the latter followed almost reluctantly before they were walking their normal path towards the school. He suspected that Tooru was running his mouth but Hajime couldn’t focus on him right now. The sakura trees instead begged for his attention, their petals sitting nicely on each tree before the downpour began. The two walked peacefully, side by side like they had every day for years, and it was something Hajime wished would continue. He wanted to stay in this place forever, with the blossoms above him and Tooru beside. 

  


“Hello! Earth to Iwa-can! Are you even listening to me?”

  


Hajime turned and looked up at Tooru, beautiful eyes alive with color and a sakura blossom sitting lightly on his coiff and he felt his heart begin to melt. This man before him, his best friend, was the first person he ever loved. He was beautiful, intelligent, talented… perfect, Hajime thought. To him, Tooru was perfect. 

  


“Oikawa.” he said in response, voice serious. “I need to tell you something.”  


“What? Is Iwa-chan nervous he’ll cry at graduation? Is Iwa-chan in love with the great Oikawa-sama?”  


“Yes.”  


“What?” Tooru asked, caught off guard and eyes hardened. “Well… which is it?”  


“I’m in love with you.”

  


The air tensed between the two men and if the moment weren’t so serious, Hajime would laugh at Tooru’s exasperated expression. He looked like a fish out of water, flopping around and reaching for something familiar. There was an anxiety in Hajime’s chest as he watched Tooru process what he had admitted, knowing that now there was no save point, no restarting, just… them two. Together, separate, whatever it may be. 

  


“No.” Tooru said after a long moment, shaking the blossom from his hair.  


“No?”  


“You’re lying.”  


“I’m not,” Hajime said, voice steely to mask his pain. “I wouldn’t lie about this.”  


“Lie now. Say that you’re lying. Please… _please_ , Iwa-chan.”  


“I’m no--.”  


“ _Please_! Please just say you’re lying so we can laugh about it and graduate and continue being best friends without anything being messed up or weird.” Tooru begged, eyes glazing over with tears. “Please… Iwa-chan… for me.  


“But… why?”  


“Isn’t it… Fuck. I don’t… I don’t feel the same. And I don’t think I can.”  


“Oh.” 

  


There was a long pause of silence between the two, Hajime desperately trying to look at Tooru’s eyes and see what was going on inside of his head, but the man turned away and nodded his head forward down the path. The two were only a few blocks away from the school by that point and they made quick work of getting there in that same silence. Tooru pulled on the fakest of smiles for their friends waiting for them at the gate, something Hajime wasn’t strong enough to do, but Tooru threw his arm around Hajime’s shoulder and said he was sad to be leaving. But there was an ingenuity in his tone that they all recognized. 

  


The ceremony passed by in a blur, a moment of blurred colors and voices that Hajime couldn’t distinguish. His eyes remained cold, blocked off steel doors to keep Tooru out and the tears in. He wouldn’t lose his composure, not here. Of course, he took the pictures with Tooru and Issei and Takahiro, but he was quick to ask to go home and have his mother make him tofu rather than go out with the Oikawa family. If his mother could tell he was upset, she didn’t make it obvious but regardless went along with what he wanted. Hajime waved a quick goodbye to Tooru as they left, a gesture the man didn’t return. 

  


The next day, Tooru left for Tokyo.

**Author's Note:**

> Henlo! Long time no Iwaoi! I'm working on a multichapter rn and have another one shot or a few planned so those will be up... one day. I was wondering if I should make another little chapter for this from Oikawa's POV afterwards? Let me know what you think!  
> [Tumblr](roymustng.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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